


Not Heaven, But Home

by Turtlebaby



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4328397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtlebaby/pseuds/Turtlebaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dead of winter he finds his Angel, cold and human. This is basically fluff without plot. </p>
<p>This was written for Slashorific 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Heaven, But Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first toe stick into this fandom and this pairing. It'll take me a little time to find their voices, bear with me, I'll keep trying! Any words of advice or encouragement are accepted gracefully and gratefully. :)
> 
> Thanks, G, for the beta, you're the bestest - All other mistakes are mine.

He came awake as gracefully as he fell asleep, eyes sliding open as slow as they'd fallen shut. The room was quiet except for Sam's rhythmic snoring. Dean wasn't sure what had woken him, only that he felt it; a change in the air, a sound he knew to be all in his head. He remembered it like it was a dream. He relaxed and let his eyes drift closed, it had been a long week. A long month, even.

He wasn't exactly sure where they were, some off the road hotel somewhere in one of the Dakotas, but ask him the name of the city or the number of the highway and he wouldn't have been able to tell you. They'd wrapped a case at the beginning of the month and hadn't even gotten a good 100 miles behind them before another nest popped up. And a ghost. And a shapeshifter with something to prove. 

When everything finally fell quiet, Dean had taken a good look around and realized the Christmas season was almost upon them. Nostalgia kicked in and without really realizing, he'd aimed his car toward home. Toward Kansas. But with Bobby gone and too many bridges burned he'd just kept north until the ache in his chest loosened. They'd spent the night before in Nebraska and had driven through the day, stopping and picking up local newspapers, checking for anything that might need their special kind of attention. 

The temperature fell steadily as they headed north and when the snow started, tiny frozen flakes that made him feel like he was driving through space, he'd pulled over when Sam had pointed out the well lit motel in the middle of nowhere. Which is how he found himself curled up under a thin blanket, three days before Christmas. He didn't usually let himself feel sorry for them, he had Sam and they had enough, but if ever there was a when to do it, it'd be now.

He pulled the blanket tighter around himself and was almost asleep when he heard it again, real this time, and all of his senses snapped to alert. The crunch of snow outside the door. He waited but it didn't come again. But another sound did. A rustle of a trenchcoat. A sound as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. He moved slow and slid out from beneath the blanket, sitting up and slipping his bare feet into his boots. He made his way to the door in the dark, not wanting to wake Sam. He hesitated just for a moment before he pulled the door open and let in the cold seep in over his bare legs.

And there he was, hands tucked into his armpits and his breath puffing around his head. "Cas?"

The other man jerked a little at his name and glanced over his shoulder. “Hello, Dean.” He shivered against a gust of wind. 

“You’re cold.” Dean stated the obvious and took a step closer, the fresh snow crunching under his boots. Hell, he was cold and he’d been outside for less than a minute. 

“It’s different.” Cas shivered again. “I’m not used to the cold.” 

“Come inside.” There was a pleading to Dean’s voice that had little to do with the certain frostbite his bare legs were facing. “Cas.”

“I’m tired, Dean.” He tucked his chin down to his chest. “It’s so strange.”

“Being tired is strange?” Dean fought the hand that wanted to rest against his friend, against his more. “Are you ok?”

Cas turned abruptly and Dean took a reactive step back. “I’m fine. I’m far more human than I’d like, but I’m fine.” 

“Your grace is still fading.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. Something was draining Cas’s powers and somehow, Dean had forgotten. In the turmoil of his own month, somehow he’d placed Cas on a back burner. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not wearing pants.” Cas tilted his head to the side. “Aren’t your legs cold?”

“Frozen through.” It was true, he wasn’t sure he could feel his knees anymore. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Sometimes, if I concentrated very hard, I could still hear them.” He looked up, towards home.

“Angel radio.” Again, it wasn’t a question. “Cas, how’d you get here?”

“A bus. A train. Some nice woman got me just south of here.” Cas rubbed at his forehead. “I used too much to find you and more than I had to get the rest of the way. I can’t hear them anymore.” 

He brought his gaze up fast and for the first time, Dean noticed the pain in it. “C’mon, man, let’s get you inside.”

Cas nodded and crossed the space between them and Dean pushed the door open to usher him inside. Cas sat on the edge of the bed in the dark of the room and Dean stood awkwardly for a moment before shrugging and holding out a hand. “You need to sleep.”

Cas nodded again and allowed himself to be hoisted to his feet. His hands were like blocks of ice and Dean cupped first one, then the other between his, only slightly warmer, hands. “Jesus, Cas. How long were you outside?”

Cas was looking everywhere except at him, the floor beside Dean’s left foot being mighty interesting. “I did not want to wake you and Sam.” 

“So what, buddy? You were just going to hang around until we woke up? You would have froze to death!” His exclamation was hushed and he shook his head as he pulled the trenchcoat from Cas’s shoulders. “You are more important than sleep.” He draped the coat over the back of a chair and turned back, catching Cas’s chin as he tried to look away again. “Always.” He was momentarily struck by the tears he saw forming. After all, Angels don’t cry either. “Oh, Geez.” But there was concern in his voice and he pulled Cas close. “We’ll figure it out, ok? We will.”

He slid the knot from Cas’s tie and undid the buttons of his shirt. His was-Angel stood stiffly, only moving minutely to allow Dean to strip him down. He shivered as his shirt was pulled from his wrists and again as Dean’s deft fingers dipped to the button of his pants, though that, he was certain, had little to do with the temperature. He breath quickened as Dean’s fingers warmed the skin above his boxers as the button of his pants slid free. He understood the basics of human arousal, of course, and he’d seen it glinting in Dean’s eyes once or twice, but Angels don’t feel this either. “Dean.” 

Caught in the sudden shift of tension, Dean brought his eyes up and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “Cas?”

And Cas blushed, the sudden heat to his face both alarming and wonderful. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Dean pushed the pants off Cas’s hips and picked them up as he stepped out of them. He pointed to the bed. “Do you have a side preference?”

Cas turned and looked at the bed, still turned down from Dean’s earlier rest. He looked back, “I don’t know. I don’t…”

“Sleep.” Dean cut him off. “You do now. Pick a place, get comfy. I gotta pee.” He entered the dark bathroom and relieved himself without turning on the light. 

When he returned the the bedroom he grinned at Castiel, laying flat on his back, his head resting on the pillow Dean had recently vacated. He moved around the bed and tossed the blankets over his friend. Pulling back the other side, he slid under the blankets himself and rolled to his side, facing Cas. “You have to close your eyes.”

Cas turned his head to face Dean. He blinked once, twice, and they didn’t lift open on the third. He slept. 

It wasn’t an hour later that Dean gasped awake, falling off the edge of a dream he’d survived a dozen times or more. But this time, this time he wasn’t alone. This time he had Cas’s cheek pressed against his chest and legs tangled in that way they get when you’re not paying attention. He ran a hand down the other man’s back and was rewarded with a sigh against his skin. “I’m sorry if I woke you.” 

“You’re more important than sleep.” Cas echoed his own words back to him. “But you didn't wake me." He hesitated and moved to roll away but stopped when Dean's arm tightened slightly.

"I need you here." He didn't want to imagine the cold seeping in if Cas pulled away. He couldn't imagine how he'd ever rested without him here. "Why're you awake?"

"I've found that I think too much lately." He dropped his cheek back to Dean. 

"Mmm, yeah, that's a human condition." Dean chuckled low. "What's got your brain whirring tonight?"

"I want to go home, Dean. I want to my grace and my wings." He blew out a breath. "I miss heaven."

"I'm sorry." He meant it but he ground his teeth and Cas picked up the increase of his heart. "That..."

"It's my home. Dean." Cas cut him off and squeezed him with the arm flung over his belly. "But I'm not saying I'd rather be there." He shifted and propped himself up on an elbow, sudden human empathy breaking his heart. "I'm not saying you're not enough." 

Dean relaxed minutely and Cas dropped back down beside him. "Is this how you feel, all the time?" His voice was soft as he instinctively diagnosed the new emotions coursing through his blood. Sorrow, sadness, protectiveness. And right there threaded through it all, he felt that thing he'd thought he'd known until now. "When I couldn't get home, I used all I had left to get to you." Dean tensed again. "Because I..."

"Cas." Dean stopped him. "We're going to fix you. And once it's out, you can't take it back. You can't do that to me. And, human Boy, Angel you doesn't..."

"I do." Cas moved again, met his eyes. "I didn't know. I didn't understand. But I do now. I do. Dean, that's what I was trying to say. I miss my wings and I miss my grace and I miss heaven." He was frantic, everything bubbling to the surface and suddenly he knew why humans went crazy. How did they handle this? How did they ever find a way to feel all this and make it make sense? " I miss home but you are home. I can't get to heaven but it's ok, it's ok because there's a little piece of heaven, of home, right here on earth." He was exhausted and his chest ached with new emotions. He didn't know how to make Dean get it. "I couldn't get to heaven, but I got to you." It sounded crazy to his own ears, it sounded pitiful and desperate and he hated it as he said it but it was true and words were all he had. "Dean?"

A breath was sucked in in and suddenly they were moving, Dean surging forward and catching his surprised features between his hands. "I love you so damn much."

Cas smiled, his cheeks caught in Dean's hands. "I think that's that thing that I wasn't allowed to say."

Dean's eyes searched his face in the dark. "Yeah?" They landed on his lips and Cas's tongue darted out without his permission and wet them.

"Yeah." He pushed forward and Dean's hands slipped from his cheeks to slide up into his hair as their lips met. Electricity shot through Cas as they struggled for dominance in the kiss. Cas won, if only due to Dean's awkward leverage. He fell back with a oomph and Cas laughed outright and pulled back to study his face. He was pleased with the joy written across the other man's face for it mirrored his own. Angels were definitely missing out on this. 

He dipped forward again and Dean let out a groan as Cas pressed him into the mattress. He had him caged there, prisoner to his perfectly human body. He ran his lips over the smattering of freckles across Dean's shoulders and murmured against his skin, "Stars over my heaven." When he brought his face up again Dean was watching him, eyes wide and bright. He caught his lips again before pulling back with a grin. "We need to sleep." He dipped his head so his lips brushed Dean's ear and dropped his voice to just below a whisper. "Maybe without an audience next time."

Dean blinked slow. "Sammy." He turned his head toward Sam's bed, suddenly aware of the lack of snoring. 

"Oh, thank God, sorry Cas." Sam's voice floated from the next bed. "I was wondering how to interrupt. I have to pee so bad."

Dean barked a laugh and Cas collapsed to the bed next to him as Sam scurried to the bathroom. 

Once the door was shut between them, Cas rolled back into Dean's arms. "Next time?" He looked up through his lashes Dean could do little against the flood that washed over him.

"Next time." He brushed his lips over Cas's head.

They were both sound asleep before the bathroom door creaked open. "Is it safe? Guys?" Sam stepped out, grinning from ear to ear. He watched them sleep, warm with content. "It's about goddamn time."

FIN


End file.
